Duelund DCA 12ga Hookup Wire

That Duelund vintage style and tone wire is just wonderful. I like it better than the Duelund silver as the tone and presentation is spot on for my tastes. Just a far less fussy wire than silver. We want our systems to play all our favorite recordings well, not just the great sounding recordings and the Duelund vintage wire helps us achieve this goal.

I use the Duelund vintage style wire everywhere in my rig. The 12 gauge makes great speaker cable for sure. I assume you twisted your runs?

Well to make a proper xlr cable you use two runs for pins 2 & 3 only. You twist these two runs and place them in a nice braided copper shield. The shield is formed/twisted into a wire at both ends and connected to pin 1.

Be sure you twist the two Duelund wires right up to the point they are soldered to pins 2 and 3. Run that twist as close as possible to the solder point. Also keep the that twisted braided shield that you formed into a wire as short as possible .... just long enough to solder properly onto pin 1.

I prefer the 20 and 16 gauge for ICs and would go no smaller. I like the 16ga better, but that is a subjective thing really. You get a tad more body and weight with the 16ga. 20 gauge also sounds fantastic and should be great on the dac connection. The Duelund wire is not as thick sounding as the Western Electric mentioned above making the use of 16ga very good on the ic.

@mitch2 Build is slightly more complex and if you read on this subject some feel it adds noise and some undesirable SQ issues. Others swear by it. Goodness, like all things in this passion, opinions are in great supply. I have not compared the two builds side by side and this is the only way to know. I will do so shortly.

I would love to hear Ralph of Atmasphere  chime in.

@mitch2 

Did you try your build with and without Flexo or the Techflex product you referred to above? I wonder if it dulled or darkened the sound in any way? Thanks.  

Many Thanks for all the great info Gents.

Did you try your build with and without Flexo or the Techflex product you referred to above? I wonder if it dulled or darkened the sound in any way?

No, I have not tried it both ways so I couldn't say.  I like the idea of the vibration-damping properties of the special Flexo Noise Reduction wrap and the thickness helps space the braid shield away from the signal conductors, which is generally considered a good thing.  I know there are people who like less complexity so they don't shield their cables, and some who even think the two signal conductors are all that is needed, without even the ground.   Most manufactured cables are shielded and most of those pass ground by connecting the shield at both ends.  The idea of a "floating" shield is to draw any interference back to the source end but since the ground is connected at both ends one could argue it may be just as good to connect the shield to pin 1 at both ends and forego the ground wire.

Thanks @mitch2 .   I agree with your interest in anti vibration damping in cables.  I am solidly in the camp that no shield sounds best and even not using synthetic outer sleeving....just silk or cotton.  I have come to this conclusion by building and testing the two options and listening very carefully over and over. Shielding always seems to darken and generally mess with the natural tone. I will test the Flexo in and out of the same cable.  Interesting product.